


At the Close of Day

by psychedelia



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Arthur teaches Charles to Paint, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:01:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21786400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychedelia/pseuds/psychedelia
Summary: Arthur Morgan and Charles Smith rekindle their life.
Relationships: Arthur Morgan/Charles Smith
Comments: 12
Kudos: 76





	At the Close of Day

Sometimes, moving on felt like hiding. 

Arthur and Charles were formidable men, but even they could only do what was within their means. As such, the small cabin they managed to build in the thick tangle of woods east of wherever Dutch’s gang will ever, ever willingly venture again, while impressive, was still nothing more than that: a small, single room log cabin with little in the way of natural lighting or comfortable amenities. 

It was still more  _ permanent _ than most things in Arthur’s life thus far. He couldn’t just pack everything on a wagon and high-tail it away from here. In a way, it was terrifying; to so resolutely tell the world  _ no, I will not budge _ . 

“Lincoln-like, though, ain’t it?” Arthur had said one evening, squashing down images of St. Denis mansions out of his mind, pushing aside visions of richly furnished city hotel rooms, burning at the stake even the slightest pondering of a wide and open ranch, a family’s homestead, a  _ home _ . He’d pointed to the lilac growing above the doorway, a sly smile curling up his face in the way it did only when he felt the most clever about himself. It was a rare smile.

Charles had snorted and crossed his arms, deigning it only with a short, “You know he was dead in that poem, right?,” leaving Arthur to gape at his retreating back and then scowl at his poor attempts at aestheticizing their second chance at life in Whitman-like phrases.

Arthur had foraged and found some forest plants to cultivate in their manmade clearing, and in the process, had surrounded their cabin with more aesthetically pleasing flowers and plants, just to have something to do in the afternoon. As such, despite the dim lighting on the inside, the outside, in the late spring air, was dotted with color, blooms of prairie yellow Coneflowers, blood red Cardinal flowers, and wedding-white Miss Manners eagerly clinging to the sides of home, and a hardy purple lilac bush (something he bought in St. Denis after Charles had quietly mentioned it being his favorite flower one time-stolen night in camp) cresting above and over the doorway.

It was these deep, rich pigments that Arthur would find wrapped in loose satin ribbons on their bed, oil paints, and pencils, and whatever other art supplies that Charles could find whenever they made it back to cities or towns, and Arthur never asked Charles how he afforded them, ‘cause just ‘cause they managed to get out of the outlaw life didn’t mean those habits didn’t follow them as swiftly and as closely as a death-night shadow plastered to their back. 

Instead, Arthur would take the pigments and mix them well, mix them good, and sleuth his way to figuring out how best to draw Charles something pretty. Be it the lilacs when he brought paints to make purples, or the landscape’s fire-orange summer sunset when he brought him reds and yellows, or startling landscapes of milkweed when he brought him greens.

The days were long and the nights were comfortable, if too short, as both men attempted to learn how to live, for perhaps the first time under the watchful gaze of an earth that had bred them born of blood and knew they had drowned in its coppery flood for two score. 

\--

Charles’ gaze grew long and heavy as the months progressed, and in the small reflection Arthur caught of himself in lakes and rivers when he fished, so did his. Their comforts wore thin as the nightmares grew longer; no one said  _ moving on  _ meant  _ feeling the pain,  _ and for the first time in their lives, they reflected, and reflected, and reflected, until there was nothing more to do but choke down the tightness of their chest and move on with their day.

It was easy to think  _ maybe that’s why Dutch always kept us moving _ , but it was revisionist at best; Dutch kept on moving because it was the only thing he knew how to do. Even at his worst moments, his most cruel, his most evil, Dutch van der Linde was, himself, affected by their lifestyle. Might even be a beacon by which the word ‘outlaw’ could see it’s logical end. 

None of them, not a one, ever stayed somewhere long enough to  _ breathe _ , to grow weary, to become  _ bored _ . 

And so when Charles wrapped himself around Arthur’s shoulders one night, his breath heavy and his gaze longing, his fingertips almost lethargic as they wrapped around Arthur’s hands and said, “Teach me to paint,” Arthur had no choice but to comply. 

Even if Arthur could ever,  _ ever _ say no to Charles-- especially in this post-outlaw world where neithr Dutch nor Hosea could snap their fingers and whistle a tune and get their prodigal dog to do their bidding-- he wouldn’t. He wanted to share this with someone, he found; he’d never been in a position to allow the canvas to speak not only for him, but to  _ teach _ . To explain. To visually map the way he saw the world in a way that someone else could understand.

Arthur kissed him and said, “‘course,” and when he went to town next, he bought some canvas and some new brushes, as well as a shade of blue that reminded him of Charles, an expensive pigment so rich it would make an ancient Grecian weep. 

\--

Charles brought his paintbrush down onto the canvas, rich green rolling horizontally across the manufactured landscape. His stroke was confident and thick, but light to the touch; the paint stuck with high ridges, textured and proud. 

Arthur thought of broad shoulders bouncing in rhythm with the gallop of a horse, arms drawn tight and rigid in preparation for an arrow strike. 

Charles’ tongue dabbed against his lower lip as he filled in the lower half of the canvas with his base for a rolling plain, his brow knit in concentration. Arthur leaned against his back and felt a half-smile playing on his lips, his chin digging into Charles’ shoulder. 

The red, red sunset Charles laid upon the canvas was haunting, the sunset of myths. The sunsets of murder. Arthur might have been a superstitious man, but a sunset that color was never good news (unless you was Dutch, and the sunset signified a  _ win _ , no cost too big). It was the kind of sunset that dripped omens heavy enough to marr the surrounding hillsides for generations to come, the kind of anxious sun that seemed to waver and cry out like the last hopes of a wayward and dying candle flame. The kind of last-ditch fiery inferno that would lead to the darkest and coldest of nights.

He felt his lungs seize up and he pulled back from Charles to cough without hurting him, and ignored the way Charles’ hand went still, ignored the subtle attention on him. Arthur coughed his due and laid back down upon his man and said nothing but, “Blend that in with that yellow there,” in a throat-sore rasp. 

They were good at pretending, Mr. Morgan and Mr. Smith were. The kind of make-believe where so long as you didn’t say what was happening, the sky wasn’t on fire and the forest wasn’t choking in flames. Arthur thought of sunrises and sunsets, and he thought of the slope of Charles’ sleeping body in bed, and he stilled his mind with the pursuit of hunting, with painting, with pulling flowers. With breathing. If they didn’t say anything, it was a good life. No doubt about it. 

If they didn’t say anything, Arthur could pretend he didn’t dream of blood and ears ringing in the adrenaline rush of a gun fight. He could pretend his anger didn’t often and frequently overtake him into violence; he could equally pretend that he never noticed that anger ‘till they wasn’t killing folks no more.

If they didn’t say anything, Charles could pretend he wasn’t haunted by the ghosts of men like Arthur. Arthur knew he dreamt fitfully; knew that if a predator could watch them wake up, their sweat-slick bodies would smell like nothing more than  _ panic _ , and  _ guilt _ , and  _ exhaustion _ .

He had walked in the daylight with Death’s weeping scythe; how could he deign to move on? Death enveloped over his form like a burial shroud; the stench clung to him as deeply as fungal spores have infiltrated the depths of the Earth’s crust.

But in the beauty of the canvas, Arthur could see something akin to hope, and his grip on Charles tightened, a buoy amidst the sky-high waves of memory.

\--

In the dim lights of nearly empty oil lamps, Arthur could see the paint stuck to Charles’ fingers. A southpaw after the burn accumulated with years of rough riding, the heel of his left hand collected the most pigment, from where his hand would drag across the canvas in terse concentration. Arthur pulled his hand close, and narrowed his eyes to see the way eggshell white and deep emerald green clung to the pores of his skin.

He brought Charles’ hands to his lips, giving him the lightest of kisses, before letting the hand drop and pulling back and away from him, a small smile on his face. 

“You’re good,” He said, the cool spring air a balm to his flesh. Arthur loved Charles, perhaps, but the two men simultaneously ran so hot that it became hard, at times, to sleep comfortable embraced in each other’s sweaty existence. 

“At what?” Charles asked, and his lips were curled sarcastically, his voice carefully neutral in that way that always made Arthur laugh, and laugh, and laugh, in on a joke that no one else seemed to understand. How could no one understand the inherent mirth in Charles’ voice? The humor that filled his bones? The irony and dark cynicism that bolstered his marrow?

“Oh, everythin,’” Arthur said, drawing out the  _ oh _ until it was nearly a song, and then he let out a heavy laugh and leaned down to press against his side. 

Arthur always liked this game, infuriating as it was. Charles made him say what he _meant_ , made him talk, made him articulate, made him _speak_. Charles liked his opinion; Arthur would lie at the altar of death just to hear Charles'. It was a hard game, sometimes; more often than not, Arthur would grunt or growl or flap his hands angrily at the prospect of actually trying to dissect what he meant, what he wanted, what the diplomatic answer was, what was right, what was easy. Charles was good at making Arthur think about the _morals_ of the thing, even if Charles himself weren't the most moral man himself. 

But who was, in their line of work?

But who, too, got them out?

“Didn’t have to tell me that.” 

Arthur snorted, and envisioned impressionistic portraits of them, family portraits, hanging portraits in manors and in family halls. He envisioned daguerreotypes of them unsmiling in front of stock backgrounds, the silver surface lighting their eyes up. He imagined them in a future without red, red, red, but rather green, and he imagined them painting together, in a lush marsh, in the swamps, in the forests and the plains and the mountains, and he shut his eyes to stop himself from looking too fondly at Charles. 

“Don’t have to tell you nothin’ without you getting it.” He said, and Charles pressed a hand in his hair, fingers looping around the overgrown strands.

Charles hummed lightly.

It was one of those nights where the horrors of their existence fell away. Arthur thought of Charles and Charles of Arthur and anything else was periphery, needless context, a depth that needed no examination. Wrapped in blankets and isolation, they could see one another fully. 

Arthur could see the strokes of Charles’ paint on the canvas in his mind’s eye, and it made him love him all the more; the walls of the cabin might have been shoddy, patched together in desperation, but the canvas Charles had made would hang above the fireplace the second it was finished; a Whitman portrait of Lincoln on the hearth. 

A reminder of the deft strokes that had pushed Arthur to finally let himself  _ want _ . And sometimes, just sometimes, moving on felt like healing. Mr. Morgan and Mr. Smith slept, deeply, and dreamed of oil color filling the wooden walls of their new life.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a commission for [jiji on tumblr](https://mrwife.tumblr.com) ! You can find me at [sekwoja on tumblr](https://sekwoja.tumblr.com).
> 
> Whitman poem referenced is "When Lilacs Last Bloom'd".


End file.
